It is coming! We are pleased to announce a significant
change in the format of the publication that NCSE distributes
to its members. Beginning with volume 31 (the 2011
January/February issue), Reports of the National Center for
Science Education will be available on line. All our articles, features,
and book reviews will be available in their entirety only
through the NCSE website (http://ncse.com).

WILL I STILL RECEIVERNCSE IN THE MAIL?

Yes. There will still be six issues of RNCSE
published each year,
but we will be changing the format in several ways. You will continue
to read about the work our our staff and members are
doing to promote good science education that includes evolution
as a fundamental explanation for the history and diversity
of life. You will also see members-only features and other
materials in the print version.

RNCSE will still feature original articles, features, news analysis,
and book reviews, but our print version will contain brief
summaries of these contributions. The full text of these items will appear on line. Each printed issue
will provide a complete citation for
the on-line material and a URL to link
directly to the items that interest you.

The printed version of RNCSE will
be smaller (about 16 pages). The
reduction in the size of the publication
will be the result of shortening
the original articles, book reviews, and
features, which will appear only as
brief summaries in the on-line version.
What you will see in print will be a
review of the main thrust of original
contributions, including a recap of the
authors’ main points and with specific
attention to the authors’ conclusions.

HOW WILL I
GET THE ON-LINE MATERIAL?

The on-line articles, features, and book reviews will be available
in two ways. You will be able to browse issues of
RNCSE as you
do today by connecting to the publications page of the NCSE
website: http://ncse.com. This will present you with content
organized into bimonthly issues as you see today on the NCSE website.

You will also be able to locate materials that interest you by
using the URL that will appear with each summary in the new
version of RNCSE. This will take you directly to the item that
interests you without having to look through the contents of an entire issue to locate it.

WHEN WILL
ARTICLES BE AVAILABLE?

Beginning in January 2011, the materials that we will
summarize in the print version of RNCSE will appear on line in the first
month of the publication date. For example, the publication date
of RNCSE volume 31, number 1, will be Jan/Feb 2011. The online
material will be available in January, and the printed issue
will be available in February. Readers may access the on-line
material as soon as it is available; you do not need to wait for the
issue to arrive in the mail. You may also subscribe to a
publication
alert that will e-mail you when new materials are available.

WHAT IF I PREFER TO HAVE ARTICLES ON PAPER?

You have two choices for receiving print versions of the content
that we provide on line. First, you can connect directly to the
materials that you want to print, download them to your own
computer, and then print them to read right away ... or
later.

Second, NCSE members are entitled to free document delivery
services. You simply tell NCSE which articles you would like
to see in print, and we will send you a copy of that article on
paper. This service is available to all NCSE members — and only to NCSE members.

WHY IS
NCSE CHANGING
RNCSE?

NCSE made the decision to change RNCSE for
several reasons.
The first reason is that putting our content on line allows us to
continue the evolution of NCSE publications that reached back
to the earliest days of NCSE. We want to provide more content
and more variety for our readers. This was the rationale for the
original revision of the NCSE publications that combined the
older Creation/Evolution journal and NCSE Reports into the
RNCSE that you are reading now.
The on-line environment allows us
to continue to expand the contents
both in the type of contributions
that we offer you and in the supplemental
materials that accompany
them. This means more charts,
graphs, and photos will be available
than we can provide in print — and
perhaps even some innovative formats
that are impossible to print,
such as videos.

Second, the new format will
allow each reader to customize the
“RNCSE experience” — choosing to
read the contributions in each issue
in the order that suits you, the reader, and only the items that
interest you the most. We also plan to provide a searchable database
of all the original material published in NCSE publications,
so you can create your own collections of materials on a
particular
subject, such as “flood geology” or “intelligent design”
models.

Finally, this change will allow NCSE to make a more efficient
use of your financial contributions. Printing and mailing costs
continue to increase, and the publication of RNCSE takes up an
increasing proportion of our budget. At the same time, NCSE is
called on more and more to provide advice, information, and support
to citizens, teachers, students, lawyers, legislators, clergy, and
the press whenever opposition to evolution education emerges
in communities across the continent and around the world. This
change in RNCSE will allow us to devote more of our resources
to our primary mission of promoting good science education and
evolution education everywhere because it will expand access to
the original content of our publications even while lowering the
costs of distributing this information.

* * *

Our goal is to serve you better with our new publication.
Please welcome the new RNCSE in January 2011, and give us
your feedback to help us to meet your needs for information on
creationism/evolution issues in the future.